MuseBlog

David and Megan’s parodies (mentioned on page 3 of the November/December issue) are now available via the Gaboomba gallery page. Because of technical glitches, Moos is in black and white, but a color version will be coming soon.

This quintessentially British celebration is extra-special this year: it’s the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Maybe Paul Baker will leave his bonfire long enough to tell us about it.

Round-Robin ‘Riting, Free-Form — the way we tried it before. For those who want perfect freedom to write anything they like.

That’s Round-Robin ‘Riting, with Rules — with luck, a cure for the chaos that swallowed the previous RRR thread. Calo anor na ven!

Let us know when November/December arrives.

Wist not, wot not. This month’s random thread: a warm place in a cooling season.

Post at will, but be sure to read The Rules if you’re new in these parts.

November/December 2005 (volume 9, number 9)

COVER: Exploding Trousers

FIRST PAGE: Dark Waters: The Random Thoughts of a Blind Teenage Cavefish

KOKOPELLI & COMPANY: Chad’s latest creation loses its mind.

ARTICLES AND COLUMNS:
Why Do Cavefish Lose Their Eyes? by Luis and Monika Espinasa
Farmer Buckley’s Exploding Trousers, by Stephanie Pain
Gamers All Around You, by Duncan Graham-Rowe
Calder: The Man Who Made Art out of the Ordinary, by Doug Stewart
Peer Pressure, by Sandra Blakeslee

Q & A, by Robert Coontz and Rosanne Spector: Where does grass seed come from? Why are LED bulbs common in flashlights but rare in home light fixtures?
Math Page, by Ivars Peterson: A Good Plot

LAST PAGE: Skaters, OUI! Cars, NON!

Scroll down past the organizational preliminaries to discuss Dickens’s novel. Warning! Probable spoilers starting around comment #50.

There’s an online version of the text at Bibliomania.

Reading schedule as of October 31 (may be revised later):

Tues. Nov 1st: chapters 1 and 2
Wed. Nov 2nd: chapters 3 and 4
Thurs. Nov 3rd: chapters 5 and 6
Frid. Nov 4th: chapters 7 and 8
Sat. Nov 5th: chapters 9 and 10
Sun. Nov 6th: chapters 11 and 12
Mon. Nov. 7th: chapters 13 and 14

First step is to pick Muses. So far the following roles have been filled:
Kokopelli (Ebeth)
Mimi (mutant_hairy_thing)
Urania (MontgomeryGurl)
Aeiou (Phoenix)
Bo (Phoenix Elassë-Adæl)
Chad (Phoebe)
Crraw (Krissy also known as Kricket)
Pwt (Sheep lilbro777)
Feather (KitKat)

Non-Muses who have appeared so far:
Devil (Kokopelli’s puppy; a non-speaking but very active role) (Sheep)
Tenrecs (Lizzie)
Hot-pink bunnies (Neo)
Oog the cave person (Lorelei)
Professor Cosmo Mastiff (random rohan freak)
Blind cave fish (Rabid Pansy)
Star-nosed mole (ChinTsu)

Also possible:
Various editors, cartoonists, and celebrity guests

A forum for practicing archaic English, foreign languages, and other off-the-beaten-track forms of communication.

(Coy woodnesse means “quiet madness” in Middle English, the version of our language spoken about 600 years ago.)

Useful resources (additions welcome!):
“Chaucer’s Middle English” site at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Librarius has another Middle English glossary and a load of information about Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales

Your wish is our command.

In Robert’s latest attempt to mingle Muses and magic, Feather takes a hike with Fleur Delacour. Read more »

People seem to want to talk about them, so here goes.

Check out the list on the new Hints Page.

We’re not sure whether they all work. For the ones without symbols, try putting the emoticon’s name between colons, :like_this:

Have fun!

It had to happen sooner or later. A pink-bunny-free zone.

Some MuseBloggers have complained that it’s getting hard to keep up with the flow of messages here. That’s particularly true for those who aren’t on line every day. So as an experiment, we’re devoting this area to longer messages–say, a good, solid paragraph and up. Anything shorter will be sent to the FMP. (No blocks of hundreds of smiley faces, please!) The idea is to create a space similar to Muse Mail or the pre-blog message area on the dear old Gaboomba. Here goes…

A chance to talk about them behind their backs.

A thread for talking about the magazine itself–what a radical concept!

We think it’s supposed to work like this:

(1) PhoenixMontgomeryGurl posts the first chapter of a long story.
(2) Somebody else writes Chapter 2.
(3) Somebody else writes Chapter 3.
(4) Etc.

All right, MuseBloggers, it’s all yours.

We’re not sure which century he was born in, but October 13 is the day. Felicitations and joy, moste worthie master.

On Wednesday, October 12, another 13-year-old bites the dust. She calls herself “The Lurker” now, but she’ll always be Ebeth to us. (She’s a poster, not a lurker, anyway.) Carpe diem!

By request of Her Former Majesty, MontgomeryMongtomeryGurl.

On Friday, October 7, she turns 13 — a very fashionable age.

Another month, another meandering one-size-fits-all thread. Lurkers, step into the light! But remember The Rules.

As promised on page 6 in the October 2005 Muse Mail section, here are sound files of the B. family’s unforgettable Dumpster Dive song in AIFF and MP3 formats. Now we know how Musers’ parents afford those pricey subscriptions. All together now:

Oh, Dumpster dive, Dumpster dive,
Don’t mind if it’s been used.
We buffed and shined and mended tight
And wiped off all the poo!

(The Mac-friendly AIFF version is 25.5 megabytes in size–probably too big for dialup modems. The MP3 version is a more manageable 2.8 megabytes.)